The many ways a lizard tongue sticks, grasps, pinches and plops – in slo-mo

Kurt Schwenk, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut, views reptile and amphibian tongues as his ‘Darwin’s finches’. And, due to recent advances in high-speed cameras, he’s currently in a golden age of discovery. This short from Science magazine pairs Schwenk’s passionate words on his field of study with some incredible in-the-lab footage detailing the many ways these creatures have evolved to stick to, grasp and pick up their prey with their tongues. In doing so, the piece highlights the diverging, sometimes peculiar paths evolution can take, as well as how lab research can be a deeply creative process too, and not just a strictly observational one.